A study on common pronunciation mistakes of the third year english major students at hai phong private university and some suggested solutions
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BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG
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ISO 9001 : 2008
KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP
NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH
Sinhviên: Nguyễn Thị Trà My
Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ths. Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Hoa
HẢI PHÒNG – 2018
BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG
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A STUDY ON COMMONPRONUNCIATION
MISTAKES OF THE THIIRD YEAR ENGLISH
MAJOR STUDENTS AT HAIPHONG PRIVATE
UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED
SOLUTIONS.
KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐẠI HỌC HỆ CHÍNH QUY
NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH
Sinh viên
:Nguyễn Thị Trà My
Lớp: NA1801
Giảng viên hướng dẫn:Ths. Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Hoa
HẢI PHÒNG - 2018
BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG
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NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP
Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Trà My
Mã SV: 1412751022
Lớp: NA1801
Ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh
Tên đề tài: A Study on common pronunciation mistakes of the third year
English major students at Hai Phong Private University and some suggested
solutions
NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI
1. Nội dung và các yêu cầu cần giải quyết trong nhiệm vụ đề tài tốt nghiệp
( về lý luận, thực tiễn, các số liệu cần tính toán và các bản vẽ).
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2. Các số liệu cần thiết để thiết kế, tính toán.
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3. Địa điểm thực tập tốt nghiệp.
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CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP
Người hướng dẫn thứ nhất:
Họ và tên:.............................................................................................
Học hàm, học vị:...................................................................................
Cơ quan công tác:.................................................................................
Nội dung hướng dẫn:............................................................................
Người hướng dẫn thứ hai:
Họ và tên:................................................................................... ..........
Học hàm, học vị:...................................................................................
Cơ quan công tác:.................................................................................
Nội dung hướng dẫn:............................................................................
Đề tài tốt nghiệp được giao ngày tháng năm
Yêu cầu phải hoàn thành xong trước ngày
tháng
Đã nhận nhiệm vụ ĐTTN
Đã giao nhiệm vụ ĐTTN
Sinh viên
năm
Người hướng dẫn
Hải Phòng, ngày ...... tháng........năm 2018
Hiệu trưởng
GS.TS.NGƯT Trần Hữu Nghị
PHẦN NHẬN XÉT CỦA CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN
1. Tinh thần thái độ của sinh viên trong quá trình làm đề tài tốt nghiệp:
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2. Đánh giá chất lượng của khóa luận (so với nội dung yêu cầu đã đề ra trong nhiệm
vụ Đ.T. T.N trên các mặt lý luận, thực tiễn, tính toán số liệu…):
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3. Cho điểm của cán bộ hướng dẫn (ghi bằng cả số và chữ):
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Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm 2018
Cán bộ hướng dẫn
(Ký và ghi rõ họ tên)
NHẬN XÉT ĐÁNH GIÁ
CỦA NGƯỜI CHẤM PHẢN BIỆN ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP
1. Đánh giá chất lượng đề tài tốt nghiệp về các mặt thu thập và phân tích
tài liệu, số liệu ban đầu, giá trị lí luận và thực tiễn của đề tài.
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2. Cho điểm của người chấm phản biện : ………………………..
(Điểm ghi bằng số và chữ)
Ngày.......... tháng......... năm 2018
Người chấm phản biện
Acknowledgment
During the period of conducting my graduation paper, I have received a
plenty of enthusiastic help and support which have guided and encouraged me
to overcome all difficulties and finish this hard but meaningful time.
Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the teachers
of The Foreign Languages Department of HaiPhong Private University, who
have imparted golden knowledge to me. From these supports, I can improve
my English skills and have good background to achieve my dreams.
Secondly, I sincerely thank to Ms. Nguyen ThiQuynhHoa, M.A, my
supervisor who has given me useful guidance and advice that finishing my
graduation paper successfully.
Last but not least, I am grateful to all of the lovely third year English major
students of Haiphong Private University who contributed and had a warm cooperation to help me during the period I carried out my survey, especially
Na1901 students.
In short, I really thank to all people helping me to finish this graduation.
Thank you sincerely!
Haiphong, July, 2018
Nguyen ThiTra My
Table of Contents
PART I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1
1. Rationale ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2. Aim of the study............................................................................................... 1
3. Research questions. .......................................................................................... 1
4. Scope of the study. ........................................................................................... 2
5. Methods of the study. ....................................................................................... 2
6. Design of the study. ......................................................................................... 2
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT .................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. ............................................ 3
1.Pronunciation. ...................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Definition. ...................................................................................................... 3
1.2. The importance of pronunciation. ................................................................. 4
1.3.Factors that affect pronunciation learning. ..................................................... 6
1.4.What are the common errors in English pronunciation? ................................ 7
1.5. Consonants .................................................................................................... 7
1.5.1 Definition. ................................................................................................ 8
1.5.2. The characteristics of consonants. .......................................................... 8
1.5.3 Some common difficult consonants. ...................................................... 12
1.6. Ending sounds. ............................................................................................ 13
1.6.1 Definition ............................................................................................... 13
1.6.2 The importance of ending sounds .......................................................... 14
1.6.3. Classification of ending sounds. ........................................................... 14
1.7 Word stress in English ................................................................................. 15
1.7.1 Definition. .............................................................................................. 15
1.7.2 The importance of word stress ............................................................... 16
1.7.3 Word Stress Rules in English. ............................................................... 17
1.8. Intonation .................................................................................................... 20
1.8.1 Definition ............................................................................................... 20
1.8.2 Classification of intonation. ................................................................... 21
1.8.3 Some functions of intonation in English. ............................................... 22
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................. 23
2.Surveyresearch ................................................................................................... 23
2.1 The stages to conduct a survey. .................................................................... 23
2.1.1 Defining participants........................................................................... 23
2.1.2 Organizing survey form ...................................................................... 23
2.1.3 Methods of collecting data .................................................................. 23
2.1.4 Data analyzes ...................................................................................... 24
2.2 Design of the survey questionnaire. ............................................................. 24
2.2.1 Design of the survey questionnaire ..................................................... 24
2.2.2 Aims of the survey questionnaire........................................................ 24
CHAPTER 3. THE STUDY ................................................................................ 25
3.1 findings and discussions from questionnaire ................................................ 25
3.1.1 Student’s pronunciation errors. ........................................................... 25
3.1.2 Student’s attitude toward English pronunciation. ............................... 35
3.1.3 Students’ solutions about English pronunciation errors. ..................... 35
CHAPTER 4. SOME SUGGESTIONS TO COPE WITH STUDENTS
PRONUNCIATION ERRORS ........................................................................... 36
4.1 How to improve pronunciation .................................................................... 36
4.1.1 Awareness ................................................................................................ 36
4.1.2 Goals ....................................................................................................... 36
4.1.3 Practice .................................................................................................... 36
4.1.4 Feedback .................................................................................................. 36
4.2 Techniques to pronounce / ʃ -ʒ -ʧ -ʤ / and ending sounds correctly. ......... 37
4.3 Solutions to avoid English stress and intonation mistakes. .......................... 43
4.3.1 Solutions to avoid English stress mistakes............................................. 43
4.4 Some suggested books for learners to research on pronunciation. ............... 47
PART 3. CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 53
Appendix ............................................................................................................... 57
LIST OF FINGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES
Figure 1: The organs of speech posted by RasidRitonga
Figure 2: Consonants and vowels in English by John and Sarah (Free
Materials in 1996)
Finger 3: Mouth Position to make plosives in theenglishsound.com
Finger 4: Mouth Position to make affricatives on website
Finger 5: Mouth Position to make fricatives on website
Finger 6: Mouth Position to make nasal sounds on website
Finger 7: Mouth Position to make lateral sounds on website
Finger 8: Mouth Position to make approximant sounds on website
Figure 9: British English pronunciation sounds ʃ ʒ ʤ ʧ on Youtube.com
website
Fingure 10: The way to pronounce / ʃ - ʒ/
Fingure 11: The way to pronounce / ʤ - ʧ /
Table 1: The types of consonants according to the place of articulation
Table 2: The types of final consonants on website
/>Table 3: Stress differentiation of different words
Table 4: Stress makes the correctness for the vocabulary
Table 5: Rules of Stress on first syllable
Table 6: Rules of Stress on last syllable
Table 7: Rules of Stress on second from end syllable
Table 8: Rules of Stress on third from end syllable
Table 9: Rules of Stress on compound words.
Table 10: Rules of word stress.
Table 11: The most difficult part in speaking English.
Table 12: The appropriation of students about their general English
conversation, pronunciation, grammar, listening to native speakers, translating
English words to VN, translating VN words to English.
Chart 1: The number of years that students have been studying English
Chart 2: The most favorite English skill of third year students at HPU
Chart 3: The importance of pronunciation in English.
Chart 4: The attitude of students about studying pronunciation.
Chart 5: The frequency of mistakes made by the students
Chart 6: The pronunciation errors that students tend to meet when they study
and speak English
Chart 7: the appropriation of the students about 4 difficult consonants
Chart 8: Do the speakers get troubles with word stress when they are speaking
English?
Chart 9: The opinion of the learners about intonation difficulty.
Chart 10: The results of the recording about students’ reading
PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In fact, speaking English well depends on many factors, such as
grammar, intonation, accent, vocabulary, and pronunciation. From my
experience, most students have many difficulties and mistakes when they
pronounce English words, phrases or dialogues. Even the students who have a
long history of learning English, when they apply their language skills in
practice, they still have problems with pronunciation errors, especially
difficult consonants, ending sounds, stress and intonation rules. These seem to
be most common pronunciation mistakes of third year major students in
Haiphong Private University.
There are a lot of differences between English and Vietnamese, which
makes it difficult for Vietnamese people to learn English. Vietnamese is a
monosyllabic, while English is a polysyllabic language. If we pronounce a
word incorrectly, do not pronounce the ending sounds, choose an incorrect
part of a word to give stress, or do not pronounce the correct intonation, then
the listener may misunderstand the meaning of the word. Therefore, in order
to speak English well, learners and also third year major students in Haiphong
Private University need to focus on pronunciation.
To further study this issue, the author has conducted a study entitled:
“A study on common pronunciation mistakes of the third year English major
students at Haiphong Private University and some suggested solutions".
I hope that this paper can help English learners to understand the
importance of correct pronunciation, common errors in pronunciation, and
find out solutions to this problem. It may also help them realize the attraction
of learning phonetics.
2. Aim of the study
The purpose of this study is to help English learners, the third year
English major students at Haiphong Private University realize some common
errors when they speak English including some difficult consonants, ending
sounds, intonation and stress errors and give to them some ideas how to cope
with this problems.
3. Research questions
The following questions are questions of this study:
1,What are the most common pronunciation mistakes of third year
major students in Haiphong Private University?
2, What are some difficult consonants that students have to face?
3, What are ending sound errors of HPU’s students?
4, What are stress errors of HPU’s students?
1
5, What are intonation errors of HPU’s students?
6, What are suggested solutions to help them avoid these mistakes?
4. Scope of the study
The study is to find out some common pronunciation mistakes that the
third year major students in Haiphong Private University have to solve. The
writer pays much attention to four issues including some difficult consonants,
ending sounds, intonation and stress errors. The result of this paper will be
based on the survey questionnaire given to 18 students of NA1901. The writer
hopes that this study will be a useful and hopeful for every student who wants
to speak English well.
5. Methods of the study
These following methods are conducted to collect data for the paper:
- A survey questionnaire is designed for third year students in
Haiphong Private University.
- Recording some students when they read a passage which helps to
recognize their mistakes.
6. Design of the study
The study is divided into three main parts:
Part I: The introduction presents the rationale, aims, research questions,
scope, methods and design of the study.
Part II: The development consists four chapters:
Chapter 1: Giving the background of the problem relating to
pronunciation including its definition, the importance of
pronounce,
Factors that affect pronunciation learning, the common errors in English
pronunciation; consonant such as its definition, classification of
consonants, some common consonant errors; English ending sounds
consisting its definition, the importance of ending sounds, ending sound
errors; word stress as its definition, word stress’s role and rules; intonation
relating to its definition, classification and its functions.
Chapter 2 is about research methodology. This part is divided into two
issues consisting the way to conduct a survey and design of the survey
questionnaire.
Chapter 3 is the study which deals with findings and discussion.
Chapter 4 is to give some solutions.
Part III: Conclusion summarizes the purposes and results from the survey.
2
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to give information about theoretical
background of pronunciation. The background knowledge will help students
understand its importance and even why some errors occur.
1.
Pronunciation
1.1
Definition
When learners want to study something, the first thing they need to do
is to understand the basic concepts before they can dig into the core material.
When English learners want to learn the pronunciation, they need to
understand “what is pronunciation? There are many sources of information
that students can use and there are many definitions of pronunciation. The
purpose of this part is to provide more information about this question.
Most commonly, there are the two easy to understand definitions of
pronunciation. The Oxford Dictionary defines it, “the way in which a word is
pronounced” and the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition, pronunciation is "the
way in which a word or letter is said, or said correctly, or the way in which a
language is spoken”. In addition to this, the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press indicates that
“pronunciation means how we say words.”
Other credible definitions of pronunciation include Penny Ur (2001)
and Jack C. Richard (2002) stating, “Pronunciation is the sound of the
language, or phonology; stress and rhythm; and intonation and includes the
role of individual sounds and segmental and supra segmental sounds.”
It is clear that one of popular characteristics of pronunciation is dialect.
The sources state that pronunciation is also heavily affected by dialect.
According to research of Cambridge University Press “People tend to speak
the dialect that belongs to the part of the country they come from or live in,
which is a big part of how someone pronounces a word”.
For example “Learners of British English commonly hear RP (Received
Pronunciation which is an accent often used on the BBC and other news
media and in some course materials for language learners, but it is also
common to hear a variety of regional accents of English from across the
world” by Cambridge University Press.
How we use word stress and rhythm is also an important part of
pronunciation.
For example, it is important to know which syllables in a word are stressed
and how different patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables are
pronounced. This part can be particularly difficult to Vietnamese learners
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because of how different stress is used in English and Vietnamese. Most of
Vietnamese is bi-syllable, where English is multi-syllable. There are also
common patterns of intonation in English which enable us to give special
emphasis to words, phrases, and sentences. These patterns can completely
change the meaning of a sentence in English.
- Word stress - emphasis on certain syllables in a word
- Sentence stress - emphasis on certain words in a sentence
- Linking - joining certain words together
- Intonation - the rise and fall of our voice as we speak.
On the website, Englishclub.com, they have research about
pronunciation that states "Pronunciation refers to the way in which we make
the sound of words.”
To pronounce words, we push air from our lungs up through our throat
and vocal chords, through our mouth, past our tongue and out between our
teeth and lips. (Sometimes air also travels through our nose.)
To change the sound that we are making, we mainly use the muscles of
our mouth, tongue and lips to control the shape of our mouth and the flow of
air. If we can control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air correctly,
then our pronunciation is clearer and other people understand us more easily.
Speakers of different languages tend to develop different muscles in
their mouths for pronunciation due to each language having their own
common sounds. When we speak a foreign language, our muscles may not be
as well developed for that language, thus we will find pronunciation difficult.
By practicing the foreign language’s pronunciation, our muscles develop and
pronunciation improves.
Figure 1: The organs of speech posted by RasidRitonga
1.2.
The importance of pronunciation.
Sounds play an important role in exchanging information between
people. Sound transmission is the relationship including the speakers and the
listeners. The speaker must make the listener understand what he or she wants
to impart.
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Pronunciation is a very important element for every student learning English.
And the most important purpose of each learner is to be able to pronounce
being the same or similar to native speakers. Even if students have a good
grammar foundation, a rich vocabulary source, but they cannot pronounce
accurately, they are not highly appreciated or even difficult for foreigners to
understand them.
According to Fangzhi (1998:39), that it is important to pay attention to
pronunciation since it results in whether or not someone's message can be
passed or not by other people. Additionally, Gilbert (cited in Otlowsky,
2004:3) stated that if someone cannot hear English well, she or he is cut off
from the language. And if someone cannot be understood easily, she or he is
cut off from conversation with native speakers.
According to Penny Ur (2001), Jack C. Richard (2002), “Pronunciation
is the sound of the language, or phonology; stress and rhythm; and intonation
and includes the role of individual sounds and segmental and supra
segmental sounds”. Moreover, Otlowski (2004:1) stated that “Pronunciation
is a way that is accepted or generally understood”.
Researching about pronunciation goals, Joanne Kenworthy wrote in
Teaching English Pronunciation that “We come now to the question of what
goals should be set for individual learners or groups of learners. How” good”
should the learner’s pronunciation aim to be? Whereas some time ago it might
have been said that the goal should always be native-like pronunciation, even
though it was realized that this would be achieved by relatively few, most
people now think that this is an in appropriate goal for most learners. The
great majority of learners will have a very practical purpose for learning
English and will derive no particular benefit from acquiring a native-like
pronunciation.
There will be some learners, however, who may want to approach a
native-like accent because their work requires them to deal on equal terms
with native speakers in an English-speaking country or aboard. In this case,
we must use criteria which are occupation-related. Learners who plan to
become teachers of English will want to approximate a native accent and,
depending on their future teaching situations, many want to be familiar with
several of the major accents of English in the world. Learners who want to
work as air traffic controllers or telephone operators, for example, will need to
have a pronunciation which is easily understood in less-than-ideal conditions.
In these situations there is a limited opportunity for repetition and second
tries, indeed, these can be dangerous
In many countries English has a particular role as the language of
communication among people who are speakers of the different indigenous
languages. The multilingual nations of India and Africa are good examples of
this. These speakers of English as a second language may have a restricted
audience, they will be using English only with other non-native speakers and
therefore a pronunciation which is native-like is totally inappropriate.
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However, It must be accepted that, if there is occasion to speak with natives,
the divergences in pronunciation may lead to communicate breakdown.
While native-like pronunciation may be a goal for particular learners,
and while we should never actively discourage learners from setting
themselves high goals, for the majority of learners a far more reasonable goal
is to be comfortably intelligible. It is significant that in English and many
other languages we can make a distinction between hearing and listening”.
Therefore, “pronunciation instruction is of great importance for
successful oral communication to take place since it is an important
ingredient of the communicative competence” (Hismanoglu, 2006).
1.3.
Factors that affect pronunciation learning.
In fact, there are many factors that will affect pronunciation of students.
According to Joanne Kenworthy, there are six elements relating to
pronunciation including:
- The native language “the native language is an important factor in
learning to pronounce English; this is clearly demonstrated by the fact that a
foreign accent has some of the sound characteristics of the learners’ native
language. These are often obvious enough to make a person’s origins
identifiable by untrained as we as trained people. One or two features are
enough to suggest a particular language showing through their spoken
English”.
- The second point is the age factor”We commonly assume that if
someone pronounces a second language like a native, they probably started
learning it as a child. Conversely, if a person doesn’t begin to learn a second
language until adulthood, they will never have a native-like accent even
though other aspects of their language such as syntax or vocabulary may be
indistinguishable from those of native speakers. These beliefs seem to be
supported by many cases of adults who learn to speak a second language
fluently, but still maintain a foreign accent, even when they have lived in the
host country for many years”.
- Amount of exposure “Another factor is the amount of exposure to
English the learner receives. It is tempting to view this simply as a matter of
whether the learner is living in an English-speaking country or not. If this is
the case, then the learner is surrounded by English and this constant exposure
should affect pronunciation skill. If the learner is not living in an English speaking environment, then there is no such advantage”.
- Phonetic ability “it is a common view that sine people have a better
ear for foreign languages than others. This skill has been various termed
aptitude for oral mimicry, phonetic coding ability or auditory discrimination
ability”.
- Attitude and identity “it has been claimed that factors such as a
person’s sense of identity and feelings of group affiliation are strong
determiners of the acquisition of accurate pronunciation of a foreign
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language. As a means of exploring the meaning of these terms and the role of
such factors, let’s start by considering how native speakers of a language react
to different accents of their own languages”.
- Motivation and concern for good pronunciation “some learners
seem to be more concerned about their pronunciation than others. This
concern is often expressed in statements about how bad their pronunciation is
and in requests for correction”.
1.4.
What are the common errors in English pronunciation?
Learning English is very difficult so many learners try to make the
sounds being the same and close to these sounds of native speakers. However,
students who learn English as a second language, still make many mistakes
when they pronounce.
According to Richmanshare “pronunciation problems often do lead to
conversation breakdowns” and “There are two key problems in pronunciation
teaching: Firstly it tends to be neglected not because of teachers’ lack of
interest in the subject, but rather to a feeling of doubts as to how to teach it.
Many experienced teachers would admit to lack of theory of pronunciation
and they may therefore feel the need to improve their practical skills in
pronunciation teaching. Secondly, when it’s not neglected, it tends to be
reactive to a particular problem that has arisen in the classroom rather than
being strategically planned. In addition, through my experience as a teacher as
well as a teacher trainer who observed several lessons?”
In general, in the course of learning English, students may encounter
many common mistakes. However, learners who learn more about phonetics,
they can recognize and correct these errors.
1.5. Consonants
There are many mistakes that learners can make when they pronounce
English words such as difficult consonants, ending sounds, stress and
intonation… This part will pay attention to some consonants that students at
Haiphong Private University sometimes make mistakes.
7
Figure 2: Consonants and vowels in English by John and Sarah (Free
Materials in 1996)
1.5.1 Definition
Consonant is clearly defined in Cambridge Dictionary “one of the speech
sounds or letters of the alphabet that is not a vowel. Consonants are
pronounced by stopping the air from flowing easily through the mouth,
especially by closing the lips or touching the teeth with the tongue” or “a
basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which
can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable” in Oxford Dictionary.
Additionally, Peter Roach defined in English Phonetics and Phonology is
that “if we make a sound like s, d it can be clearly felt that we are making it
difficult or impossible for the air to pass through the mouth. Most people
would have no doubt that sounds like s, d could be called consonants”.
Definition of consonants is shown in“How to teach pronunciation” by
Gerald Kelly “consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or diverting
the air flow in a variety of ways”.
1.5.2. The characteristics of consonants.
“There are three ways of describing the consonants sounds: the manner
of articulation, the place of articulation and the force of articulation” in
“How to teach pronunciation” by Gerald Kelly.
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The manner of articulation is interaction between various articulators
and the air stream. There are six types of consonants according to the manner
of articulation.
- Plosives occur when a complete closure is made somewhere in the
vocal tract. Air pressure increases behind the closure, and is then released
‘explosively’. Plosive sounds are also sometimes referred to as stops.
- For example:
Finger 3: Mouth Position to make plosives in theenglishsound.com
- Affricates occur when a complete closure is made somewhere in the
mouth, and the soft palate is raised. Air pressure increases behind the closure,
and is then released more slowly than in plosives. For example:
Finger 4: Mouth Position to make affricatives on website
- Fricatives occur when two vocal organs come close enough together
for the movement of air to be heard between them. There are 9 fricative
sounds in English:
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Finger 5: Mouth Position to make fricatives on website
- Nasal sounds occur when a complete closure is made somewhere in the
mouth, the soft palate is lowered, and air escapes through the nasal cavity.
Finger 6: Mouth Position to make nasal sounds on website
- The lateral is so called because, in this sound, the airflow is around the
sides of the tongue.
Finger 7: Mouth Position to make lateral sounds on website
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- Approximants occur when one articulator moves close to another, but
not close enough to cause friction or to stop the airflow. Note that /w/ and /j/
are sometimes referred to as ‘semi-vowels'. This is because they are made
without a restriction to the airflow, unlike the other consonants. But they act
in a consonant-like way; we say an apple^ but we say a pearya watermelon
and a yam. All three approximants are important linking sounds in connected
speech
Finger 8: Mouth Position to make approximant sounds on website
Describing the consonant sounds in terms of the place of articulation
gives more information about what the various articulators actually do. The
term ‘bilabiar, for example, indicates that both lips are used to form a closure.
Place of articulation
Bilabial
labio-dental
using closing movement of both lips,
e.g. /p/ and /m/
using the lower lip and the upper
teeth, e.g. /f/ and /v/
Dental
the tongue tip is used either between
the teeth or close to the upper teeth,
e.g. /0/ and /Ỗ/
Alveolar
the blade of the tongue is used close
to the alveolar ridge, e.g. /t/ and /s/.
Palato-alveolar
Palatal
the blade (or tip) of the tongue is used
just behind the alveolar ridge, e.g. /tj/
and /ds/
the front of the tongue is raised close
to the palate, e.g. /j/
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Velar
the back of the tongue is used against
the soft palate, e.g. /k/ and /η/
Glottal
the gap between the vocal cords is
used to make audible friction, e.g. /h/
Table 1: The types of consonants according to the place of articulation
The force of articulation,the following terms are used: fortis or strong,
and lenis or weak. In spoken English, Tortis’ happens to equate with unvoiced
sounds, which require a more forcefully expelled airstream than lenis' sounds,
which in English happen to be voiced. As far as English consonants are
concerned, the distinction is most useful when it comes to distinguishing
between sounds that are articulated in essentially the same way, one using the
voice, the other not.
- An example pair is /p/ (unvoiced and fortis) and /b/ (voiced, and lenis).
1.5.3 Some common difficult consonants
According to “How to teach pronunciation”,” we typically use 20
different vowel sounds (including 12 diphthongs), and 24 consonants”. So
there are some difficulties for learners to pronounce some consonants
especially consonant clusters. In this part, the author wants to pays more
attention to four main constants: sound’ /ʧ/ and sound ' /ʤ/, /s/ and sound /ʒ/.
Figure 9: British English pronunciation sounds ʃ ʒ ʤ ʧ on Youtube website
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Difficulties for: A, C,
F, Gk, Ind, P, Sp
d
3
Difficulties for:
A, C, F, G, Gk, P, Sp,
Tu
Characteristics
Palato-alveolar sounds. The tongue
tip, blade and rims close against
the alveolar ridge and side teeth.
The front of the tongue is raised,
and when the air is released, there
is audible friction. The soft palate
is also raised, /tj/ is unvoiced and
fortis. Afe/ is voiced and lenis. /d^/
is devoiced at the end of a word.
As in . . . churchy judgey nature,
larger
Fingure 10: The way to pronounce / ʃ - ʒ/
Characteristics
Palato-alveolar sounds.The tongue
blade makes light contact with the
alveolar ridge, and the front of the
tongue is raised. The soft palate is also
raised. /JV is unvoiced and fortis. /3/ is
voiced and lenis. /3/ is devoiced at the
end of a word.
As in . . . she, fish, beige, nation,
meamre
/3/ does not occur as an initial sound
Difficulties for: in English, and is rare as a final
A, C, G, Gk, sound.
Ind, It, R, Sc,
Sp
3
Fingure 11: The way to pronounce / ʤ - ʧ /
1.6. Ending sounds
1.6.1 Definition
In English, attention to ending sounds is a very important factor in
pronunciation.
What are ending sounds? The learners can understand simply that ending
sounds are the letter sounds at the end of a word.
Examples of these are: t in cat, g in dog, n in pen, and d in hand.
The ending sounds refer to one or more consonants at the end of words.
Ending sounds are codas.
Almost every English consonant appears word-finally, except for /h/, /w/
and /j/ (Cummins, 1998). Besides, English has a lot of complicated consonant
clusters, as mentioned previously, combining two, three and even four
consonants together in the onset and coda. This is commented as “quite
unusual for languages to have consonant clusters of this type” (Yule, 2006:
48).
Yule (2006: 47) states “The basic structure of the kind of syllable
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